


coyote and the hanged man

by parrishes



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, Origin Story, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 18:37:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4575357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parrishes/pseuds/parrishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Returned to America and to his father, captive, Ethan dreams the same dream over and over again. Coyote tells him the same thing, every time. Slight Ethan/Vanessa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	coyote and the hanged man

Ethan was dreaming again, sweating and thrashing on his cot. 

Every night since his return to his ancestral home - a dark, looming building that smelled bitter and sour and stale, there was the dream, his nightly companion. The house felt like his father: cold, hard. Even the air seemed rigid. It could have been home, once, when he was small and his brother had still smiled in his rakish way and his father’s face hadn’t looked quite as drawn. 

But the past is dead and gone and his father had never smiled even when Charles was alive, so there’s no point in reminiscing. Home is Grandage Place now, home is London. Home is Vanessa, if he’s being honest with himself. He’s had a lot of time to think about it - the voyage across the Atlantic, his train ride across the continent - and he curses himself every day for being idiotic enough to turn himself in. 

His father had taken one look at him, and sent him down to the backroom of the cellar, a room that was isolated, soundproof, and - most importantly - windowless. He’s been home for what he thinks is two months, and he’s only left the cellar three times. The scratches on the wall might be a few days off, but Ethan isn’t sure. He’s always dreaming. 

It’s always the same dream, familiar like a buried, half-forgotten memory: a violent sunset, orange and magenta, mesas looming like giants in the distance, shadows black and stark against the flat ground. He is always under the impression that, in this dream-memory, the sky is about to set him (and everything around him) on fire. It wouldn’t improve the landscape, honestly. The landscape is fine on its own.  

He’s standing by the big saguaro; the fences, the borders of the cattle ranch, are just matchsticks in the distance. He starts to walk, setting out for the towers in the sunset, setting out for the horizon. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees rattlers and scorpions, but they skitter out of sight at the sound of his boots hitting the gravel. No matter.

Ethan is on the low ground, the saguaro behind him on the hill and the sagebrush ahead, all around, and then a rustle: wind and the smell of pitch, the smell of something - hair or fur - burning. Coyote blows into form beside him, out of dust, trotting along in the rapidly-bluing sky. Ethan ignores him. He knows better than to tell Coyote anything. The stories he’d been told as a child had been very clear in that regard. 

They walk together in silence, until they come to the stream. The water blocks his path - it isn’t deep, but it is wide, and he’ll have to ford it. The sky is orange-purple, bleeding into blue like a bruise, and it casts deep shadows on his face. He sits down to rest awhile - he’s got a long trip, even if he doesn’t know where exactly he’s going. He’s traveling north, and that’s all he knows. 

_You made a mistake, you know. Leaving_. Coyote’s mouth doesn’t open, but his echoing voice is strangely flat, strangely full.  

“How is it a mistake to leave that place?” He counters Coyote, stares at him with narrowed eyes, suspiciously. Never trust Coyote. The stories speak for themselves.

_I’m not talking about that house. That’s not your home. Did you miss it when you walked out the door? But you did leave your home, and now you might not be able to make your way back. Look behind you_. 

He does. He looks back, and the landscape has changed entirely. The desert is behind him, vast and endless. The hill would have been the size of his thumbnail, the saguaro a sliver, the borders of the ranch gone entirely. It’s all gone. Everything is different. 

“What have you done?”He’s staring at Coyote with something akin to panic. “Never trust Coyote” is a chorus in his head, over and over.  _Come on, Ethan_ , he thinks to himself _. You know better._

_I haven’t done anything. This is you, inside. This is how you feel._ Coyote’s smoky, flickering tail brushes the ground once, twice. He doesn’t quite have eyes. 

Ethan feels like a lone tree in the middle of a waste. He has to concede that this flat, dry emptiness is a pretty apt representation of  _miserable_. 

“Why are you here? No one believes anything you say.”

He glances at the stream, at the water flowing over the rocks, shiny flecks peeking out of the silt. When he glances back, Coyote is the vague shape of a man, but Ethan can tell… 

Coyote is in the shape of him. He staggers back like he’s been hit. 

Coyote watches him with his shifting, half-formed face, and grins with all his teeth. 

_I can only tell you what we both know, Ethan. You left your home, and now you’re alone. You left her, didn’t you? You left her._

In Coyote’s grin, in the wickedly unnatural sharpness of his fangs, Ethan sees  _him_. Vanessa’s demon. His demon, too. Their enemy. 

“It’s you.” He now has a better idea of the terror Vanessa lives with every second, and an infinite increase in respect for her unwavering strength. 

_Of course it’s me, Ethan. You’ve known me all your life. This is just one of the faces I wear. Sometimes I wear your face, did you know? If you ever see her again, ask her about the time I did. She’ll remember._

Coyote is the trickster. Coyote always lies. Remember, Ethan. But he has to know… 

“Did you make me what I am?”It’s the most pressing question. It’s the only question, really. It lies at the heart of him. It’s everything.

_You were always meant to be what you are._

He glares at… himself. “That isn’t an answer _._ ”The eeriness is creeping, finger by finger, along his spine.

_Well, that’s what I’m going to tell you._ The grin recedes.  _Is there anything else?_

“Yes. You broke my heart.” 

The grin fades entirely, only to be replaced with a look of abject pity. 

_Oh, Ethan. I didn’t. No. I didn’t break your heart._

Pity fades too. Next, Coyote’s face is carefully blank.

_You broke your own._

Ethan wakes up.

**Author's Note:**

> “The Hanged Man” is a reference to the 12th card of the major Arcana, which is a card of sacrifice and letting go; the first of which Ethan has done in spades and the other he still needs to do - let go of his guilt. Coyote is a trickster in Apache myth, here he’s an archetype of the devil.


End file.
